Martial Rape, Pulsating Fear, and the Sexual Maltreatment of Girls (παῖδες), Virgins (παρθένοι), and Women (γυναῖκες) in Antiquity

Abstract

The variably sequenced tripartite noun phrase, παῖδες, παρθένοι, and γυναῖκες, is shown to be a coordinated noun series signifying “girls, virgins, and women,” not, as hitherto interpreted, παῖδες as “male youths” or as “boy and girl children” plus “virgins and women.” Further, “virgins” in this phrase is primarily an age designation meaning “emergent adolescent or virgin-aged girls.” The tripartite phrase is thus female-specific, and it reflects the three life stages of underage girlhood, emergent adolescent “virginhood” (or maidenhood), and womanhood as a sexually active wifehood and procreative motherhood. In relation to female groups, the tripartite phrase refers to females of mixed ages from girlhood to child-bearing womanhood. Although important in itself for raising the social visibility of girls and women in antiquity, this semantic argument also brings forth important new evidence from the orator Hyperides, the Peripatetic Clearchus, the historian Diodorus, and the Roman imperial-era Adoulis inscription about the sexual tenor and sexually acquisitive goals of populace-ravaging warfare against underage girls, virgin-aged girls, and women. The Neoplatonist Proclus discloses the resultant social availability of underage girls, virgin-aged girls, and women to be sexually objectified and maltreated. These new insights reaffirm the value of linguistics and philology as powerful tools of socio-historical inquiry.

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